“As a media trainer myself, I understand how challenging dealing with the media can be sometimes. Susan obviously has a lot of experience with and knowledge of media relations. She can speak with much authority on the subject. She also incorporates a balance of humor and firsthand examples in her training, which adds to its authenticity.”

Alice Scott
Communications/Public Affairs
State of California, Sacramento
“Susan sees public relations needs in their totality. She has the unusual ability to foresee problems before they occur, and when the unexpected happens, she is excellent in navigating the storm. She is easy to work with and determined to give clients the best value for their investment.”

Dr. David Woodard
Professor of Political Science
Vanderbilt University and Clemson University

About Hart PR

About Hart Public Relations

The most important thing you need to know about Hart Public Relations is that I'm an independent practitioner with 30 years of public relations experience in corporate, agency, academic and nonprofit settings. 

The next thing you need to know is that I'm real, I'm candid, and I'm strategic. With a degree in Public Relations and Journalism, I began my career as a reporter, but soon realized that my research-driven mind, my dependency on strategic thinking and my penchant for accuracy weren't cut out for short-term deadlines.

Instead, I have honed those strengths to help corporations, small businesses, entrepreneurs and nonprofits solve their problems through strategic public relations. I help organizations discover their true personalities, understand their distinctive characteristics, identify relevant decision makers and acknowledge the needs they are meeting or creating. Then I promote what they do through a strategy of best public relations practices. The best is saved for last, which is celebrating the positive results with them.

Career Accomplishments

  • Work with professional service providers to brand/rebrand themselves to authentically differentiate them from others in highly competitive market spaces
  • Facilitate intensive and thorough discovery process to help businesses determine who they are, what they stand for and what needs they meet
  • Execute public relations programs with specific messages to key audiences through the right media at the appropriate time such as a branding campaign for a $600 million, NYSE company, resulting in a 43 percent image improvement
  • Develop targeted public relations campaigns to ultimately influence desired behavior such as a statewide campaign to provide public resources to combat childhood obesity, resulting in extension of program funding to additional counties
  • Conduct media training programs for senior executives, including an international corporate group of 250 administrators
  • Create promotions to generate specific action steps, including local volunteer recruitment program selected for national campaign for largest nonprofit in the United States

Fun Facts:

  • I've been interviewed by 60 Minutes, DATELINE NBC and 48 Hours – and survived. It's not nearly as bad as you think if you're prepared.
  • To impress a guy, I once parachuted out of a perfectly good airplane, had a malfunction, cut away, pulled my reserve and lived to tell.
  • I worked extensively with Garth Brooks in the late 1980s before anybody had ever heard of him. He still won't follow me on Twitter.
  • I'm an organic gardener with my own brand of growing things that I call "mullet gardening" - serious evergreens in the front of the house and party vegetables in the back.
  • You'll never hear me use debatable nouns like “flack” or senseless verbs like “spin” or “PR”.
  • I read. A lot. I prefer nonfiction of the historical kind.  
  • I'm an animal rescue advocate. Don't make me choose between one of my dogchildren and certain relatives.